Lorraine Johnston

Handling multiple domain objects with Model-View-Controller

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture style separates software into models representing core functionality, views which display the models to the user, and controllers which let the user change the models. Although more sophisticated architectures have since been developed, MVC is interesting to explore because its simplicity makes it more acceptable to practitioners and it is beginning to become well-known in industry. However, MVC is rarely studied with regard to systems containing more than one domain model. Several issues are either ambiguous or missing in the literature. The distinction between views and controllers, the way model states are updated in a multiple-model architecture, and the creation of reusable domain-specific components. A program was developed to investigate these issues, and this paper documents the corresponding design decisions. MVC proved helpful in creating a multiple-model system with reusable components, although some weaknesses remain.

eXtreme programming: helpful or harmful in educating undergraduates?

Criticism is sometimes leveled at the academic Software Engineering community on the basis that current educational practices are too document-centric. Both students and practitioners have suggested that one of the popular, lighter-weight, agile methods would be a better choice. This paper examines the educational goals for undergraduate Software Engineering education and considers how they might be met by the practices of eXtreme Programming. Our judgment is that education about some agile practices could be beneficial for small-scale development. However, as it stands now, eXtreme Programming as a package does not lend itself for use in educating about large-scale system development in tertiary education.

Curriculum development in educating undergraduate software engineers - are students being prepared for the profession?

The growing importance of software and its role in society places greater emphasis on developing suitably skilled software engineering graduates. In developing suitable curricula, it is vital that we understand standard models of software education, the educational processes and outcomes for the students. This is important not only for students completing a software engineering degree, but also once they have graduated and used their skills as practitioners. Here, we report on a survey of past students who have completed an undergraduate degree in software engineering and compare their perceptions with current efforts to standardise undergraduate software engineering curricula.

Common Industry Format: Meeting Educational Objectives and Student Needs?

The Common Industry Format (CIF) provides an industry standard for the reporting of usability test results. The ongoing success of the CIF will in part be determined by the support of future IT professionals. The work reported in this paper describes our experience in adapting and using the CIF in an introductory Human-Computer Interaction course at an Australian University. It also examined subsequent student perceptions about the usefulness and ease of use of a CIF-style template, and the degree to which students were able to generate CIF-compliant reports. It was found that few modifications to the template were required to meet the educational objectives of the course. Overall, students were neutral as to whether the CIF was a useful or easy to use device, but were able to generate moderately compliant reports. Comments from students indicated that more formal training in the CIF might be useful.